Mardock Scramble

Shell pointed his gun at the television and fired repeatedly. The monitor exploded, and sparks flew out into the room. The image of the girl and her voice were wiped cleanly away. He had made everything clean. Clean—and he felt his gut wrenching inside. His mouth was filled with the taste of sour liquid, and he bent over double and vomited copiously.

His body heaved repeatedly, and sticky yellow liquid drooled from his mouth.

When he had finished, Shell stood back up and fired a shot at the ceiling light and at the bathroom light. He put his hand to the doorknob and gripped it tight.

He was so frightened that his hair practically stood on end. There was a horrifying shade on the other side of the door, he knew it. The thing that he had always fought to repel, to make disappear—it was back, alive again, and standing right there.

Shell flung open the door with all his might and jumped out, brandishing his gun. He was confronted by an empty corridor.

Shell’s last remaining shards of reason forced him to notice that something was very strange about this whole situation.

Despite all the noise and gunfire coming from his room, there was not a single person about. There was no sign of commotion.

He was suddenly struck by the feeling that whichever way he tried to go now, whatever he tried to do, the outcome would be the same.

A horrible place to be. Flashbacks—his whole body convulsed at the thought that he would never, could

never, take another step again.

–Please do as I ask—it makes things so much more inconvenient otherwise.

The voice came from behind him, and Shell jumped. His whole body seemed to shriek. Shell’s eyes darted around looking for the source of the voice as if his life depended on it.

–You see down there? Room 202? It seems that you can use one of its windows to jump across to the next building.

The voice was coming from the intercom of the room he had just stepped out of.

He shot it, almost instinctively. Past the door and straight into the intercom. His bullets had run out before he even knew it. Shell stuck his hand back into his bag.

Some money fell out, bills fluttering about. Shell found the spare magazine he was looking for and reloaded his gun with a trembling hand, making for the elevator as he did so.

He had absolutely no idea what he should do next. If he saw something that moved, he planned to shoot it. His mind couldn’t conceive of anything other than to kill.

He pressed the button and an elevator appeared almost immediately. Shell suppressed a wave of nausea and jumped aboard. His fingers shook uncontrollably as he lifted them up to the buttons. Eventually he managed to steady them long enough to press the button for the first floor. But the door wouldn’t close. On the other side of the door was a wide stretch of open corridor that ran both left and right. He felt hopelessly trapped.

–You do make us work for it, don’t you? The first floor of the hotel is closed, off-limits. The emergency stairs, now, they would have been one thing. But I really didn’t expect you to try the elevator.

The voice was coming from inside the elevator. Shell held his breath, and a beat later his mouth was filled with sour liquid again. He kept it down, trying to steady his gun.

“What are you? Where are you speaking from?” Shell realized where the voice was coming from almost immediately after he said the words—the elevator’s emergency circuits.

–I’m inside the building behind this hotel. Come over here and you’ll have any number of escape routes.

“Who are you?”

–I’m one of the private investigators in charge of this case. A Trustee. Just think of me as someone you want to do business with.

“A PI…” Shell took a deep breath. His forehead was pounding. He squeezed his gun tightly and asked another question. “Are you planning to kill me?”

–On the contrary. You should think of me as your only friend for miles around.

“What sort of business are you talking about? What is it you want with me?”